So tomorrow came, I showed up in the morning, and they said they had forgot to deliver the form to their personnel operations department and I would have to wait another day. Explaining that I could not do that, the female guard talked to the personnel people again and they said there was nothing they could do today, the form had to be submitted and ground through the wheels of military bureaucracy. How nice of them to block off Iraq's prized archaeological sites from tourists.
However, it was not as this was entirely necessary. Nasiriyah is a very flat expanse of landscape and Ur looms large on the horizon, and arriving again at the checkpoint in late afternoon with the sun setting behind it, certainly Ur's power can be seen from several kilometres away. All that is left of ancient Ur is the massive Ziggurat anyway, and a few side buildings, and any small prized pieces had been plundered over the past few millenia.
My guide, Mahar, suggested an alternate route. He pulled off the paved road and started driving in the desert towards the Zigurrat, through the territory of Bedouin, pulling up until we were within 500 metres of the structure and allowing me to snap a few photos. Turning around, we were confronted by two wandering Bedouin fellows who engaged in heated discussion with him. Eventually, they let us leave without incident - but Mahar had told me that they were required to arrest anyone who came around this way, as the US army had allowed them to stay in their camp's outer perimetre and to report any suspicious activity to them. Mahar had told them he was looking for a nearby village and had lost his way. Any excuse they can use to pass us off and ignore them.
So, that was as close as I made it to Ur, which was reasonably close - but thanks to the bloated and disorganized US army it takes days to get permission to get into the site, days I did not have. I have mixed feelings about them protecting these sites - keeping them under their constant protection might be good, given the absolute destruction the Iraqis have reaped on other local landmarks in this postwar anarchy.
However, even planning to visit these camps is difficult. The next day, heading north to visit Babylon, I had made my appointment and arrived a half hour early; it would be nearly 90 minutes later that I was finally taken in to see the site, along with a French camera crew and a Ukraininan journalist team. The man responsible for escorting us around was not particularily interested in keeping the appointments that all three of us had made for the day, and simply waited for when it was convenient to gather us all up and head in.
Babylon, Take 2
